There are indisputable grounds to accuse Ilham Aliyev of all earthly and heavenly sins, but there is no doubt that he is always honest about Nagorno Karabakh. On February 25, he announced that he knew that “Khojalu and other occupied territories will also be liberated, but I could not say that when they asked what would happen to Khojalu, other territories.” At the beginning of the year, he made another remark that the November 9 document was signed with a “gentleman’s agreement” and the parties agreed that “there (in Nagorno-Karabakh) everything remains as it is.” In other words, the legal and political status quo should not be changed at least until the end of 2025.
What actually happened is known. It is important to understand how it happened. Here, it seems, one should be guided by Russia’s fishy silence regarding Baku’s propaganda about “transporting arms, weapons and ammunition, manpower” from Armenia to Nagorno Karabakh. Moscow has never at any level not only denied that propaganda of Baku, although it was about the “militarization” of the area of responsibility of the Russian peacekeeping troops, but it has not even addressed it.
Why? After all, formally, Aliyev internationally questioned not only the impartiality of the Russian peacekeeping troops, but also the ability to keep the situation under control. Basically, it turns out that Moscow was interested in the escalation of the situation in and “around” Nagorno Karabakh. The course of the destruction of the NK issue is approximately this, which logically should have reached the blockade of the Lachin Corridor, then the complete blockade of Artsakh, the “anti-terrorist operation of local importance” in the area of responsibility of the Russian peacekeeping troops, and the total deportation of the Armenian population. What would Russia get in return is exclusively a question of the sphere of Russian-Turkish-Azerbaijani relations.
One thing is obvious. Having won the game, Aliyev refuses to “pay the bond” or tries to pay the least painful price for himself. And what is Armenia’s fault here? That he did not attack the Lachin Corridor on September 19, did he not move the war to his sovereign territory? The Shushi Declaration obliges Turkey to immediately and fully engage in war against Azerbaijan in case of any military action. From whom does Turkey insure Azerbaijan against not only regional but also geopolitical force majeure? From Armenia: Russians have a famous saying for such a case. “I am not to blame for your downfall.”
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